


objects with no shadows

by thenonsenseprophet (ProfessionalCouchPotato)



Series: Ahsoka Displaced [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Hermit Ezra, timey-wimey bs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29564964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessionalCouchPotato/pseuds/thenonsenseprophet
Summary: Deja vu? Again?
Relationships: Ezra Bridger & Ahsoka Tano
Series: Ahsoka Displaced [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2164395
Kudos: 13





	objects with no shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Day 5: it's dark. The lights are off, the moon is out, and my dad is playing Pink Floyd on vinyl in the other room. I'm so tired, but I'm just vibing.

When Morai returns, she has a friend with her. Ahsoka watches, bemused, as the condor grapples with a smaller bird, both of them dancing drunkenly through the air. Morai lets out a screech of joy and tucks her wings into a dive. There is an answering chirp, and her friend follows suit. 

Morai’s wings flare outward, and she slips into an easy circle above Ahsoka’s head, while the newcomer settles onto the ground on stilt-like legs.

“Hello there,” Ahsoka laughs, as the bird peers at her warily. Its eyes are enormous and golden, and fit no better in its purple feathered head than its ridiculous curved beak. In terms of appearance, it could not look more dissimilar to Morai, but Ahsoka senses the same canny intelligence in both. 

“How did you get here?” she asks, rhetorically. The bird opens its beak.

“It followed me,” says a man’s voice, and Ahsoka nearly thinks the bird has spoken. Then one of the nearby doors ripples, and the owner of the voice steps out. 

“Hello, Ahsoka,” the man smiles. One of his hands remains across the door’s threshold as all manner of animals pour out into the in-between. He seems familiar, and his long cobbled-together robes practically shout  _ Jedi exile _ , but Ahsoka does not recall ever meeting such a master. 

Perhaps, then, this is not a master she has met before. Who would know her by name, while she can only catch hints of deja vu? 

The man smiles again, and turns to watch a family of womp rats trundle out of his hood and down his robes. The movement reveals a rusty lightsaber, deformed by what appears to be roots growing within the casing, and somehow even more tellingly, two parallel scratches running along the left side of his face.

“Ezra Bridger? What are you  _ doing here?” _ She resists the urge to set her hands on her hips like a master scolding their errant padawan. “Don’t tell me you came back!”

“Oh,” Ezra says blithely. “I didn’t.”

Ahsoka’s eyes narrow. “Then what are you doing here,” she finally asks.

“I never left.” 

_ But I saw you leave,  _ she almost says, and then has to frantically think back. Her memory informs her that yes, she had seen her version of Ezra dive through a door - he wouldn’t have evaded Sidious otherwise. 

This Ezra looks up from helping a bantha cub squeeze through the door and catches her staring. 

“Don’t worry,” he is quick to say, going slightly red under her disapproving scrutiny. “They always behave themselves.”    
  
“Uh huh.”

Ezra clears his throat and finally pulls his hand from the doorway, allowing it to fade away from wherever he had just been. 

“You did see me leave, by the way,” Ezra grins. “Because that version of me did leave.” His smile turns a little bit wistful. “By now, I kinda wish I had, too. I never took your advice, and look where it got me.”

There is a collective roar of what can only be described as indignant offence, localized entirely around Ezra’s ankles, as his entourage of creatures forms up protectively around him. 

“Yeah,” he laughs, “I guess it got me some pretty great friends.” The animals quiet, apparently mollified.

Ahsoka watches with a frown. “What do you mean,  _ ‘I never took your advice’ _ ?”

“The past I remember is a little bit different than yours,” explains Ezra. “I was a little bit different than the Ezra you know, and so when the time came for us to split ways and leave this place… well, you left, and I stayed.”

Ahsoka crosses her arms, unsettled and unwilling to show it. “How is that possible? And if you’re from some alternate timeline, fine, but why are you the first other person I’ve seen here for--” she nearly says  _ years, _ but it couldn’t have been that long. Could it?

Ezra winces. 

“What did you do,” Ahsoka asks immediately. Now, she really does put her hands on her hips.

“When I say I didn’t take your advice... “ Ezra hedges, and Ahsoka’s eyes widen.

“Ezra Bridger, tell me you didn’t try to save Kanan!”

The red under Ezra’s collar travels up to the tips of his ears, and he looks both sheepish and wistful when he says, “I used to hate it when you or Hera treated me like a child, but I’m just so glad to be able to talk to you.”

Ahsoka levels an accusatory finger at him. “Don’t you try to change the subject!”

“Yes!” Ezra bursts out. “I did, and it worked, and I don’t regret it all!” Then he daflates, and the purple bird from earlier butts its head against his elbow sadly. “Even if it didn’t last very long.”

“Everyone dies eventually,” Ahsoka says cautiously. He makes a rueful noise.

“I know that. But at least you all got a bit more time with him, before…”

His head bows, and he rubs a hand across his forearm absently, displacing the sleeve of his robes and revealing the ropy edges of a long healed lightsaber burn. Loss almost as old as that scar leaks into the Force, and the family of womp rats huddle together, shivering.

Gently, Ahsoka rests a hand on his shoulder. She waits until he meets her eyes. “What is done is done,” she says firmly. “We must never forget the past; we must simply live with it.”

He aims a small frown at her. “I’ve been monitoring this timeline ever since it began to change - since  _ I  _ changed it, I guess. And one thing I still don’t understand is why you’re here.”

“I don’t know either,” she admits, and lets her hand drop away from his shoulder. “It felt like the right thing to do.”

“Doesn’t it always,” Ezra says, cracking a wry grin that she reluctantly returns. He is different than the troubled young man she parted ways with however long ago. He feels more centered, and certainly much stronger in the Living Force, if his new retinue is any indicator. But more than that--

“Don’t you miss your family?” 

He nods, but does not elaborate.

“Then why not go back to them? Don’t you think they miss you, too?”

“I know they don’t,” Ezra sighs. “Why would they? Their Ezra was never so tied up in the past that he left them for it. Their Ezra came back to them.” At her furrowed brow, he clarifies,

“Once I changed the past, my present ceased to exist. This is the only place I belong anymore.”

“You could build yourself a new home in the past--”

“I wouldn’t risk undoing the changes I’ve already made.”

“--or the future. You don’t have to stay here, Ezra.”

His gaze goes distant, fixed on some faraway point Ahsoka cannot see. Then the worried chattering of several large beetles drags his attention back to one of the bags slung over his arm, and his features ease back into an easy smile.

“I’m happy here,” he says. “I could go past your Ezra’s lifetime and make something new, but I think I might be past the age for that. It’s been an eternity for me since I made my choice, but time passes differently in here.

“It’s different out there.” Ezra points over his shoulder to the door. “And it doesn’t matter anyways. I’m happy here.” 

Reluctantly, Ahsoka does not push the issue. Instead, she lets a comfortable silence fall as Ezra turns his attention back to a three-legged loth cat. She stares down the path in front of her; it is just as confusing as before, but now some of her hopes have been dashed. 

If she changes things too drastically, she may never be able to go back to her home. Is that a worthwhile sacrifice, if she could, say,  _ eliminate the Empire?  _ Would it be worthwhile to wipe away everything about the times she knows, good and bad, and hope that the future that replaces it is brighter?

Is it her place to do such a thing, just because she can?

“I’ve got some errands to run,” Ezra says, breaking Ahsoka out of her reverie. “I get the feeling you have some of your own problems to deal with.”

Ahsoka shrugs helplessly. “More every minute,” she says, and Ezra chuckles.

“Then I guess we’ll run into each other again?” He sounds hopeful, as his friends clamber up his robes and into his sleeves. Ahsoka just gives him her best mysterious Jedi smile and sets off walking again.

She can practically hear Ezra rolling his eyes. It is nice to see that some things will never change. Also comforting in its familiarity is the soft trilling call of Morai, saying goodbye to her new friends and then gliding along in Ahsoka’s wake. The in-between is still dark and endless and meaningless, but Ahsoka cannot help but feel that it has become a little bit less lonely.

**Author's Note:**

> This installment as well as the idea of jedi hermit Ezra Bridger was inspired by a wonderful piece of artwork I saw on pintrest; I just want to make sure the artist is okay with me linking it here before I do so.


End file.
